Well, if you're sure Pt 2
by Emma Lynch
Summary: Post TLD AU. Molly stood by Sherlock when all others did not after the Culverton Smith case, enabling him to see her true worth. So, this second and final part picks up after Sherlock's birthday and ends beyond The Final Problem. What will Sherlock do with his new knowledge, before others recognise her incandescence and it is too late? Or shall a Holmes sister end everything?
1. Chapter 1

**Trust**

"Watson, you are astonishing."

I am ridiculously enchanted. Captive. Enslaved.

John had consistently waxed less than lyrical in regard to my unpredictable attention span, yet here I was, poised and focused and awaiting my next request without complaint or rancour and with every intention of securing 'a job well done.'

It was like my first day at school (alas, only ever that first day).

The object of my attentions stops mid-action and turns, regarding me quizzically. Had it been too long? Had I made too many assumptions regarding recognition, loyalty, even interest?

"Ssshhhh - " she pronounces, one hand clasped territorially about my Persian slipper, the other gripping the jaw bone of a long-dead acquaintance. "Sssshhh!"

And I grin, despite my extensive knowledge of human development and linguistics nudging threateningly at the edges of my euphoria.

"And good morning to you too, Watson," I say to Rosamund, who smiles gummily, half John, half Mary and entire, unexpurgated genius.

I could not be prouder.

 **~x~**

"She was most likely trying to shut you up."

"Most certainly she was not."

"She was hushing you, Sherlock. Were you telling her about the solar system again? With diagrams? She's a bit little - "

"She was saying my name - starting to. I know my blended digraphs."

John smiled as he fell into his chair (shirt on second day, old razor, new barber - needs to sharpen his scissors and his visual accuracy) but it never reached his eyes; a regretfully common event these days.

"You probably do," he reached down towards his daughter to scoop her onto his lap whilst I revisit my decision to consign Billy to the mantel with gratitude. People are more than delicate about their children's proximity to body parts, no matter how educational. "But Rosie isn't quite there yet, are you, petal?"

He tickles out excited squeals and squeaks by blowing at his daughter's bare skin as I sigh, realising the growing extent of my role in her semantic development, but I realise a there must be a time and a place for such discussions and I am endeavouring to be delicate in the wrangling of our rapprochement; it simply means too much for errors to be made.

As if sensing my hesitation, John stops mid-tickle, allowing her to calm a little, then looks at me a little too carefully.

"You are … you are _good_ with her, Sherlock; really good."

Since the Culverton Smith incident, my emotions have been haphazardly close to the surface, so I cannot trust myself to answer, instead, nodding into a pile of newspapers across the table from us.

"I… er, I really am grateful for all of the babysitting you've done recently. It's kinda saved me from a P45 after all the time I've had off already."

I nod, leafing pointlessly through a myriad of newsprint, throat thickened and tight.

He smiles at me and I calibrate his glance to be a little more than 80% (perhaps even 81% at a push) as I sense him pushing forward with another request (expected and anticipated). I hate, however, the taint of awkward politeness it entails.

"Mmm- seems a bit of a cheek - "

"Of course I will."

"You don't know what I - "

"Yes, I do."

He smiles again (regretfully down to 74%), shrugging as he hoists his golden haired daughter across his hip. I am only slightly mollified when she pulls three saliva-laden fingers from her mouth and waves them in my direction. Exceptional dexterity.

"Course you do. Mmm, not working though."

"Therapist?"

"You got it. She's good. Perceptive. Don't s'pose you remember…"

I colour at that.

"Surprisingly, more than you imagine."

"Yeah, well. I'm seeing her tomorrow at 3.30. Any good?"

He stands, balancing Rosie, affecting a 75% degree of normalcy, which is enough - for now. It has to be. Rosie, fingers back in place, blows spittle through them, then waves at me again, strings of drool festooning herself and her father.

"Ssshhh!" She crows, waving. "Ssshhhh!"

"Perfect," I smile. "One hundred percent."

 **Trauma**

Rubber soles.

People imagine hospitals to be constantly full of dramatic dashes through weighted, swinging double doors, down brightly-lit corridors, pushing a laden trolley with one hand whilst holding up a life-saving saline drip with the other, but the self conscious clatter of my cuban heeled shoes evokes nothing but a tinge of embarrassment to add to the adrenalin. Normally, I wear rubber soled flats, but today was a schedule full of budget meetings and TA interviews, and I was trying to create a professional aspect to my first week as Leading Pathologist. All that's abandoned now, as I scrabble noisily down dimly-lit corridors, hair loosened from poorly-constructed chignon and coat flapping in disarray.

 _John's coming in. Been shot. Awaiting details. GL_

My vibrating Nokia buzzes violently, bouncing off my hip as I run, but there is no time.

I shoulder the doors into Casualty and am met by an unusual calm: a tired looking receptionist, several rows of slumped, yawning and resigned potential patients and the upturned collar and concerned eyes of Greg Lestrade, exhibiting an unusual compound of expressions.

None of them appeared urgent.

"John-?"

Greg steered me across the public areas towards a side room.

"Sorry Molly, seems I was a tad more dramatic than was necessary."

John Watson lay across a trolley; he was unconscious, but breathing was even, colour good and the only sign of injury a tiny nick across his exposed shoulder.

"Tranquiliser dart," expanded Greg, shoving the chart into my hands as a nurse took some vitals. "Seems his therapist had a few unconventional methods not yet approved by the UKCP."

"You're kidding me? Are we in a Boy's Own adventure in deepest Borneo? Who uses tranquiliser darts in … in England? In this century?"

Greg quirked a tiny smile and something flashed across his eyes momentarily, then was gone.

"You've called Sherlock?" I looked crazily about the tiny room, as if mere mention of his name would summon him from the shadows, like Rumplestiltskin.

"On his way. Seems he had Rosie and Mrs Hudson was out." All that buzzing on my phone. _Shit._

Greg has the kindest of eyes; dark brown and searching, almost as if he'd quite like an answer, but would be OK with it if you didn't want to talk right there and then. He reaches out, touching my arm.

"The therapist woman's scarpered and we've zilch to go on bar a ripened corpse in the upstairs airing cupboard, so I need Sherlock to be calm and not run off half-cocked, looking for her - "

"You want me to talk to him don't you?"

"If you have time? I know how busy the new job is -" _(Do you? How? Why?)_ "We need John to wake up and tell us as much as he can before we can make any real progress. They've both been through a shit time lately, so I just thought…"

One chief wrangler down, let the deputy step up. _God._ I shake myself free of such disgraceful and uncharitable notions and lean across Greg to clip the chart back onto John's makeshift bed, nodding.

He stood up, grateful eyes, dark and … ?

"Thanks Moll. You're … brilliant."

Yep. Brilliant Molly Hooper. You got me.

* * *

 **A/N: Thank you for returning (if you have), you lovely people.**

 **If you have not read Pt. 1, this story will still make sense, but please feel free to check it out if you would like to!**

 **:)**

 **As always, if you can share, I would love to hear your thoughts.**

 **E. x**


	2. Chapter 2

**Sister**

Of course I didn't get to him first.

Texts flew, eyes were peeled, promises made, but there stood Sherlock in my lab as I entered with a brimming mug (" _Dead Centre of Town_ ") and I knew immediately he'd seen John.

"Nosferatu."

He stands in the semi darkness, pressed almost into the wall, arms folded and face expressionless. Why was he still here? He'd be out, hunting her down, surely? That's what he did.

"You mean me?" He didn't look at me and I realise there is something seriously out of kilter, so I put down the mug.

"Yes, you. You must be able to dissipate, like mist, and travel under door gaps - "

"To get past Lestrade? _Please_." He steps forward, out of the shadows and it's all I can do not to pull up a chair and make him sit with his head between his knees. I have seen healthier-looking corpses.

"How is John?"

"Illuminating. As ever."

"He'll be OK, Sherlock."

"I know. Apologies for the evasion Molly, but I really won't be sidetracked. Lestrade knows this."

"Sure." I walk across, dragging a chair, like some insanely overdressed and under-enthused burlesque dancer, and push him into it whilst I hand him the mug without procrastination.

"And neither will I," I say, watching him drink my coffee without complaint. "So talk to me."

 **~x~**

Three is the magic number.

Three wise men, little pigs, musketeers, faith, hope and (of course) charity, and let us not forgot the holy triumvirate of Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

So here we are, a trilogy of Holmes siblings, each one a little more lunatic than the last, with the youngest so very dangerous as to have been eradicated from the family tree, and from my own memory. Molly suspects I shall keel over any second from being in receipt of such knowledge, but the shock of it all is not without some recognition, some ripple of remembrance from deep within.

There is always something, and there _was_ always something.

The morbid dread of _something,_ battened down in an unsecured tomb, something that could escape at any time and return to awaken everything. Even now, little snippets snap at my synapses like tiny piranhas, wanting their share of the cow in the river. A house, large and blackened (fire? not accidental); a red-haired dog racing around a wild meadow, tangled with brambles and tall, springy grass; children wearing wellingtons, running around, laughing, breathless, hopeful for games; a song rolling around my head untethered and yet without form, but with numbers, counting… down.

Something is tugging at my hand and I look into Molly's dark eyes as she takes the empty mug, placing it carefully on the brushed steel bench.

"You have a sister." She is not asking, only reminding, since I am clearly most forgetful these days.

"What is her name?"

"Sixteen by six…"

"Ninety-six. What is your sister's name?"

"The East Wind," I reply, seeing pig tails and Arran knits, sprigged dress and wellies. "She was the East Wind, blowing through and … ruining … things." Seeing eyes without light, without life, without hope.

"Sherlock, you have to give yourself … time… to process this - "

 _Which one is pain?_

"I deleted it, but I was always going to find it again. I always have to find my own truths since things have been hidden away for far too long."

"Sherlock - " My hand is in hers, limp and weak, but she holds it anyway and I am grateful, and suddenly _furious_. "Sherlock," she continues, "you are shaking. It's shock. I am ringing Mycroft."

"Yes." My eyes meet hers, suddenly focused and I can feel a brain rebooting, coming back on line and firing out its connectivity like sparks, like bullets.

"Yes, let's get in touch with Mycroft," I stand, dropping her hand and finding my phone. My brother turned my little sister into a ghost story. "I'm sure he can clarify things, with a little persuasion."

 **~x~**

 **Vengeful**

"For God's sake, will you just sit down and we can sort something out!"

I'm not sure if it's the residuals from the phenothiazine or Sherlock's rapid burst of pacing (from bookcase to laptop to window then back to the bookcase again) that are making my head spin, but I do know it is going to have to stop.

"He won't admit it John. Keeping secrets is like breathing to that cold-blooded... _quisling!_ "

"Think you mean 'sibling'."

"I know what I mean."

Suddenly he halts, energy draining like a faulty battery, and sits down heavily into- what is luckily- a chair.

"I know Mycroft," he says, softly, running a hand through already wild hair, "and he can smile and smile and be a villain, until the hobs of hell have frozen over." A theatrical huff as he folds one long leg across the other, then reverses the position, then makes to stand again and I think it's time I stopped the drama. Having Rosie has made me truly understand the merits of cutting to the chase.

"Sherlock, sit still and let me tell you something -"

He stops, glacial eyes both truculent and fearful, and my heart does clench a little for him.

"In war, I've seen things; ways of making people say things they really shouldn't be saying. Things they'd promised to take with them to the grave."

"Torture?"

"Don't get your hopes up. No, nothing so crass. I mean fear. Find what Mycroft is most scared of, because I know him too, and he won't tell you a thing unless he's virtually wetting himself."

Sherlock steeples his fingers slowly and I know he's thinking of twenty different ways to terrorise his brother.

"But, keep it simple, eh? None of the usual _Holmes-drama-queen_ stuff is necessary this time."

Sherlock is up, pulling on his coat and stuffing tenners into his pocket from a concealed drawer I've yet to find the key for and he's smiling for the first time in days (weeks, months?)

"Naturally John, you know my methods."

 **~x~**


	3. Chapter 3

**5\. Ruined**

I had been trying to prepare my eyes for most of the journey (certainly since getting off the link bus) but I wasn't ready for the smell.

Acrid, bitter, caustic fumes held heavy in the air, scratching the back of your throat and coating everything in the immediate vicinity of the blast with black crumbs of carbon.

The door had been blown off and shockingly lay across the other side of the street, lodged by its own velocity into a neighbour's railings. The sight of its forlorn and undignified resting place and the usually bright and proud brass '221B' filthy and hanging loose nearly makes me weep until I remind myself no lives had been lost and that miracle was worth the ruination of all the doors in the land.

Glass crunches beneath my feet as I walk past the rough chipboard and yellow tape, since Mrs Hudson had told me to 'come round the back' without going into too much detail as to why. Just as well really. Looking above my head, Speedy's canopy flies tattered and charred in the slight breeze spreading charcoal along Baker Street this morning. An ensign on the field of battle could not have looked more defeated, and I considered for the millionth time how it bore the weight of a man falling at velocity from above, even for a second. Upstairs, more chipboard and charring around what had been beautifully preserved Georgian frames, but it's a building, isn't it? It can be rebuilt. It's people who can't be.

Her face crumples at the mere sight of me and I wonder how long she's toughed it out.

"Oh Molly, those poor boys."

I'd always known how much she loved them, and it was clear her house was only really a home with them in it.

I'd brought her cakes and sympathy but couldn't persuade her to leave and stay with friends.

"All their things are here, all _my_ things! Any smack head who can burrow through chipboard with a stanley knife could be in within minutes."

"And you being here ... that would be a ... deterrent?" Her resultant look was enough to end that line of questioning quite abruptly.

Besides a blackened patch on her ceiling, Mrs Hudson's kitchen was relatively unscathed and we sat, drinking scalding Assam and eating sugar doughnuts (with a side sprinkling of carbon). John, apparently, had already discharged himself as Rosie needed him and was _'sodding well sick of hospitals'_ , and the Holmes brothers had repaired to Mycroft's palatial Kensington mansion to regroup.

"If this is what it takes," her hand encircled the room in a general summation, "to unite those two, then maybe I need to speak to their parents." (I bit down the words 'join the queue' as the tip of the Holmes' childhood iceberg was only just nudging its way out of the depths of the ocean, sure in the knowledge there was so much more to come).

"Is Sherlock OK? Is _everyone_ OK? It doesn't seem feasible…"

Upstairs had been cordoned off as 'unsafe' and subject to forensic attention but even if it hadn't been, I didn't want to stand in that room and imagine how it must have felt with barely 3 seconds to leave it.

"I was in the back pantry, just putting away the hoover. It was as if they knew… ( _they would have known_ ) but it missed me completely. Even my Dresden stayed on the walls in the parlour… most of it." I squeeze her small hand; it's like touching a bird. "There's barely a mark on the three of them; it's a miracle."

We have more tea and I decide against further persuasion to relocate Mrs Hudson. Sherlock would smile at me when he spoke of her (always genuine then) and declare that 'England would fall' if she decided to leave Baker Street, like the ravens at the Tower.

She makes to dip into the bag of cakes again, then hesitates. I nod towards them, saying:

"Go on - what's the worst that could happen?" then blushing ( _"I've seen worse, but then I do post-mortems" - for God's sake, Molly Hooper!)_ but she was smiling as she bit into it.

"Quite right too. I bet Sherlock loves these when you bring them over, doesn't he? He pretends not to care about food, but what a sweet tooth that man has!"

The clock ticks above the cooker and a sprinkle of sugar falls, dredging the plate beneath.

"I - I don't really see - "

"Oh, I know you won't have seen much of each other recently, with everything that's been going on, but usually - "

I rub my fingers together, feeling crystalline sugar between them; twelve molecules of carbon to every twenty two of hydrogen and eleven of oxygen. Everything is carbon in the end, even us. I am calm and contemplate: what has he told his trusting landlady about his relationship with me? What possible construct is she imagining now? How many molecules of truth, of assumption and barefaced lie must combine to make the compound of our relationship in the head of Sherlock Holmes?

 _(That man needs to hold you, to kiss you and to father your children)_

"Mrs Hudson, I came over here to see how you were and if the boys were OK. Sherlock _isn't_ … that is, we are certainly friends, but I don't want you to think…"

 _(There is hope Sherlock; there is always hope)_

Her eyes widen slightly, then crinkle in the corners as she gives a tight, conspiratorial nod.

"Everyone has been through such a lot recently - " I continue, with little impact, as she smiles benevolently, tidying up the tea tray (standards, even in the midst of chaos) and bustling about her ruined building as though a stealth bomb hadn't exploded the day before, ripping out its beating heart.

"It's quite alright Molly, dear. I should know better than to pry. Sherlock is so private," she snaps her fingers and thumb together. "Shuts up like a clam when anyone starts talking about _feelings._

 _(I don't want to die)_

My hammering heart slows a little.

 _(but I'm just not sure how to live)_

"He hasn't said - ?"

"A dicky-bird." She smiles wide and honest. "But Sherlock doesn't always have the monopoly on deductions, now does he?"

 **~x~**

 **6\. Lure**

She doesn't hear the latch, nor the deft unhooking of the door-chain, and Molly Hooper sleeps so deep as not to register the creak of cupboard doors nor the _thump-thump_ as an object is lifted from a high shelf.

Recent nights have been spent wide-eyed and restless, twisting within hot, scratchy blankets, wrestling with rock-filled pillows and attempting to recall a time of cool, smooth sheets and seamless drifting away till morning. Sleep - so integral to life and so taken for granted until it becomes lost to you - just out of reach, beyond the horizon.

Tonight, however, Molly sinks into molten pillows of the softest goose down, reaching a desperate oblivion borne of physical, emotional and bone-deep exhaustion. Thus, it is only a soft siren song, carried within the fragments of a dream that drags her back up from that sweet abyss.

She is swimming, but the tide is against her and waves rise high, slicing the horizon and blocking out the moon. Boats bob beyond the waves, but she can't help notice the boats are on fire. Far away in the distance, as the swell takes her up, the land is also burning with crackling, searing flames and a mermaid is singing a sea shanty.

 _I that am lost, oh who will find me?_

 _Deep down below the old beech tree._

 _Help succour me now the east winds blow._

 _Sixteen by six, brother, and under we go!_

Such is the lure of the subconscious, Molly's brain tells her she can taste the burning salt as seawater floods her mouth, making her gag and cough.

 _Without your love, he'll be gone before._

 _Save pity for strangers, show love the door._

Flames crackle over head (somehow nearer now) and, far away, people are shouting, waving, urging her to swim closer, but she makes no distance, no progress.

 _My soul seek the shade of my willow's bloom_

 _Inside, brother mine -_

 _Let Death make a room._

The waves are higher and everything burns, scorching embers falling into the sea around her and the song is louder, but words fade and fire dims... waves calm and all that remains is the soft lullaby of an introspective violin, a ticking bedside clock, and the familiar crack in the bedroom ceiling above her head.

She is exhausted, but with heart still pounding from being cast adrift in a fiery squall, Molly allows the adrenalin to lift her up out of bed, pad noiselessly over soft, worn carpet and uneven boards to gently push open the door of her kitchen. Sherlock halts mid-bow, Pablo de Sarasate's _Tarantella_ dying away into the night air, looking through bloodshot eyes and glass-scored face. The moon is bright (as in her dream) and Molly notes how it casts a blue taint over the room, their skin, her nightgown, and she finds she still feels the swell of the sea beneath her bare feet.

"I ... was drowning."

He lowers his violin (safe, stored in her cupboard, untouched by damage), laying bow and instrument down upon the kitchen bench, his eyes never leaving her face.

"I woke you."

"You saved me."

Stepping forward, Sherlock reaches out a moonlit hand, blue and cool against her bed-warmed face, and cups her jaw, letting his thumb travel slowly down her cheek and across her soft mouth without apology or hesitation. Her breath catches sharply and something tightens within him as, closing his eyes, he attempts to suppress a groan.

"No," he whispers, bringing the other hand to her face, her heat to his coldness.

"You saved _me_."

Then his hands are in her hair, on her shoulders, pulling her fragility inwards, and Molly once more feels the huff of his breath against her cheek but this time his mouth is silent and finding hers and kissing her, hard (but soft) and then again, and again, and then many more times as blue moonlight holds them safe, in a place where no-one else would think to find them.

 **~x~**

She watches in the early light of dawn as he canters down her steps, out into a street deserted but for pigeons and a long, black pristine Daimler which opens up like a leviathan's maw as he approaches.

Molly is certain he will not turn back, will not look up or even acknowledge her stance, but he does, and in the cool brightening of the morning, the breeze lifts his hair, the smile reaches his eyes, and he is truly _glorious._

Sherlock sinks into instant warmth, comfort and luxury as he leans back into the Daimler's seat and closes his eyes. It smells of leather, tobacco, money.

"Is this really the best decision, considering our current predicament Sherlock?"

Mycroft is smoking again and appears to have aged a decade since the previous day, but bygones being what they were (bygones) and new alliances drawn up, Sherlock allows his brother a little slack, and a tiny glimpse of his happiness.

"It really is the only possible decision, Mycroft."

"I see. Timing was never your strong suit."

"Agreed." He opens his eyes, surveying his brother. "I am grateful to note I still have the capacity to surprise."

Mycroft quirks his mouth into his usual moue of condescension, but Sherlock now knows what he knows and is no longer appalled by his older sibling.

"It is the timing only that surprises me, Sherlock, nothing else. As little as you know of Sherrinford, I am sure you understand the very significant chance that one or all of us may not return."

Sherlock sighs, sitting up straighter, running hands through his hair and offering a nod of acknowledgement.

"Then, as John says, we must enter as soldiers and play our parts as such."

"And Dr. Hooper?"

"She understands. It's not the first time she's seen me go up to a roof top to meet a madman."

"Soldiers, then."

Mycroft Holmes taps the dividing screen once with his umbrella handle and the car purrs away like a tamed panther, immediately swallowed up by the jungle that is London.

 **~x~**


	4. Chapter 4

**ILY**

It's raining, pouring, and Londoners have reduced their world to the square foot beneath their umbrella, their newspaper, their source of shelter.

No one looks, so no-one sees who they're looking for until they are upon them, staring at black Doc Martens, (size 10) and green leather pixie boots with lily of the valley embroidered across their ankle strap (size 5) and suddenly reminded to brave the downpour and look … _up_.

"For cryin' out loud!"

"Greg? God! So sorry about the coffee! I'll buy you another …"

"Molly, come out of the rain."

"I can't really…"

"In this doorway, come on, follow me…"

The portico of the bank is mercifully (and incredibly) empty, denuded of people who were too busy rushing home that evening to stop and take a second to speak to a friend.

"It's incredible I've bumped into you. Today of all days…"

"Have you been busy?"

"Have you heard from Sherlock?"

Both stop, look in each other's eyes as the rain pounds hard on the glass roof of the portico and they realise a few things.

"Sorry Molly. Not the question I should weigh in with, but I've had a hell of a few days and that man has featured in my nightmares, I can tell you."

"He can have that effect."

The air hangs heavy with words unspoken, questions unasked.

"You haven't seen him, obviously." Greg moves his weight from one foot to the other. Everything about him seems anxious, fraught, awaiting her answer.

"Mmm… no, no I haven't seen Sherlock. Should I have?"

"No, well, it's just I've been hijacked down to Suffolk with full battle dress earlier this week… Christ, I so should not be telling you this…"

"Oh?" If only she had taken that bus instead of trying to walk, this agony wouldn't be happening.

"But I figure you might already know."

Molly shakes the rain from her hair and decides her umbrella is simply unrecoverable as Greg continues.

"She got out of Sherrinford and everyone ended up in the shit, if you can pardon my French."

Molly has rain running from the tendrils that cling to her forehead and leach across her windswept cheeks. Beneath the rainwater she is pale as buttermilk and Gregory Lestrade resets his sensors as he runs his hands across his face, sloughing away water, tension, heartache.

"Eurus," she says, bleak and empty.

He sighs, turning on his heel and staring at the carved, stucco ceiling that is wasted in a bank and more suited to a cathedral.

"Yeah, you do know. Thought so."

Molly swallows, looking up into those kindly eyes and wondering if she will have to be more frank than she had prepared to be since leaving the house that morning.

"It must have been so terrible, for everyone."

His eyes widen, as if reliving those hours at Musgrave Hall all over again.

"Jesus Molly, you just have no idea …"

She swallows, breathing in deeply-

 _(Yes, yes I do)_

-and looks up, seeing his beautiful brown eyes, eyelashes spiked with droplets of water and his brow furrowed in query.

"Greg, I ... "

"Sherlock's OK. John's OK. Even Mycroft has got away with barely a headache. Sherlock's sister is back where she needs to be, as you know." He pauses, then: "Shit, Molly, Sherlock has talked to you, hasn't he?"

"He… he phoned me."

"And?"

She closes her eyes, knowing but hating that memory all the same.

"We… we talked."

 _Molly, please, without asking why, just say these words._

"Oh?"

"Yes. I think it was a stressful time for … everyone."

 _Please don't do this. Just ... just ... don't do it_.

"Things were said and things were… promised."

 _It's always been true._

They stand for a second, listening to the hammering above their heads, each lost in their own thoughts.

"You are a lovely woman Molly Hooper. You are… _incandescent_." She looks up, shocked, to find him looking at her, soft, heartfelt.

Oh.

"You kinda… glow. You have an wonderful kind of energy that… ah, fuck… well, I saw you, I see you, and I … I wanted… want you."

She is awash with panic, embarrassment, gratitude, admiration…

"Greg…"

They look across at each other, listening to the hiss of the water and waiting for … something.

"Greg," begins Molly Hooper, with a lion-heart and a ruined umbrella, "you are a valiant and… wonderful man who didn't have to tell me any of this."

"Oh?"

"No. You could have just… you know… asked me out."

In answer, Greg drops his own umbrella and pulls her towards him, blending cold with wet and heart with heart, and encircles her shoulders with his strong arms in a hug that is nothing but love, and she lets him, because comfort and warmth on a cold, wet day is nothing but a gift.

Then, Molly Hooper squares her shoulders and stands up straight in front of a man who might already love her, and finds the rain is easing off, staccato bullets becoming gentle stipples, then nothing at all.

"Yeah," says Greg Lestrade, strong, valiant, loyal, brave… "Yeah, yeah I should have got in there first shouldn't I?" But there is a strained smile behind his words.

She sucks in a breath, but he lets her off, and breaks her heart.

"It's always gonna be Sherlock," Greg bends down and picks up his umbrella, as if the hug never happened, as if the love never was.

And Molly finds herself nodding and tears leak from her eyes, despite vicious attempts to stem their flow. He didn't need to see this; more water, more waste. Her sobs catch in her throat in a way she couldn't cry after that phone call and she wants to pull on Greg's sleeves and hold him in place, and explain herself, but she bloody well can't, because he's right. It's always been Sherlock, always, always.

He leans over, heat and coffee and rainwater and awkward, all rolled into one, and kisses the top of her head.

"I get it Moll," he says, kindly, softly. "It's pretty fuckin' obvious."

And she cries all the way home, until her throat aches, her eyes sting and the sky is empty of water.

 **~x~**

 **Once upon a time**

 _There was once a dog who wasn't a dog at all, and a wicked little sister who wore the mask of a little girl, but was really a monster…_

The Embankment is quiet this evening. A few tired adults with energetic children running off ahead, heading home after a day of sightseeing; a small, oddly restrained gaggle of hens wondering where the nearest bar might be (I suspect there to be a missing hen, owing to an untimely and less than charitable affair with the groom-to-be) and a few couples, walking slowly, holding hands.

We are one of those couples.

Molly Hooper doesn't chat or demand my input, but I find myself speaking anyway, and once begun, I am unable to stop until the tale is told.

We had spoken several times in the previous weeks (in apology, in anger, in sorrow) but it is only now, retracing some of those steps I took with my sister, that it all spills out, unedited and, ultimately, fully understood. She does not speak, but simply holds my hand tighter at certain junctures, when words are halting and raw and almost unbearable.

At length, Molly and I stop by the Royal Horse Guards Garden and take a moment to look at the London Eye, perpetual in its orbit across the London skyline.

"I knew you'd come back," she says, in a tight whisper, reflective (as most would be) after knowledge of Eurus.

"My sister made it less than easy to do so," I return, touching her bright hair, the curved edge of her jaw, holding her shoulders and wondering when I would be able to stop craving her (current data: unhelpful). "But moments of peril are often conducive in focusing the mind. I think I actually shocked her, since I certainly shocked myself."

"I see."

Her eyes twinkle and I determine upon a fae-like source of energy as being responsible for such witchcraft.

"Do you? Molly Hooper, in addition to your remarkable perscapicity, I must add patience to your list of attributes. You are my heart, and I had lost sight of my heart."

Everything in fairy tales must be in threes; brothers, sisters, golden balls, wishes, even pigs and bears and animal musicians. There are always three attempts to solve a riddle, guess a secret ( _what big eyes/ears/teeth you have, Grandmama_ ) cross a river, and so it is that I have told Molly that I loved her:

 _Once in fear_

 _Twice in realisation_

 _Thrice in truth._

"I love you," I say, wrapping arms tight about her, and standing against a London skyline where ghosts may tread across our paths untroubled by those who live, love and are happy.

"Well, if you're sure?" Her eyes sparkle and I find I quite enjoy being teased and I kiss her as indication of my intent, and at length I say:

"Oh, I'm absolutely certain."

And I am.

 **THE END**


End file.
